Review Summary

Drearily sentimental, Jean Becker’s “My Afternoons With Margueritte” is the chaste love story between a genial, unlettered lug of a working man (Gérard Depardieu in unflattering blue overalls) and an older woman he meets on a park bench in a town in the Charente-Maritime region of France. She reads to him (Camus, Romain Gary). He blossoms.
In melodramatic flashbacks we learn that the man, Germain, was berated in school for being slow. But that’s nothing compared to the treatment he receives at the hands of his mother (Anne Le Guernec; Claire Maurier plays the still-merciless character in the present), who spares no opportunity to remind him that he’s an unwanted oaf. Attacking a boyfriend with a pitchfork, she’s every inch the bad mama.
Years later, enter the good mother, the gentle, lovely Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus), who seems to be the only person — besides his improbably young and pretty girlfriend (Sophie Guillemin) — to see something special in Germain. How could he not be attracted to Margueritte, whom he compares to the glass figurines he spots in a store window?
The fine-boned, delicate-looking Ms. Casadesus, now 97, is a pleasure to watch (and to listen to). And the not-delicate-looking Mr. Depardieu does his usual excellent job. But their scenes together, if sweet enough, aren’t particularly convincing or moving. Which is the problem in general with this film, which was shot in slightly garish color that lends everything an unpleasant cast: It rarely rises above the pedestrian.